


Redoubt

by buckles



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 06:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3640182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckles/pseuds/buckles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It isn't the same as for mortals. The energy of spirits returns to the Fade. If the idea giving the spirit form is strong, or if the memory has shaped other spirits, it may someday rise again."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Redoubt

"We're lost." Sera moans. This was supposed to be a routine run to the Hinterlands... although this part of the Hinterlands seemed odd and unfamiliar. Pine trees grew thick and unruly. Even the ever-abundant fennecs that used to populate the Hinterlands were long gone.

"No, no. I know where I'm going." Adaar stops to look at her map.

Cassandra shifts idly, taking her weight off one leg. The sun cast long, peculiar shadows through the trees. "Going to be dark soon." Dorian pointedly notes. 

"This way. I'm sure of it." Adaar finally said.

The trees grew thicker and closer, and getting through them quickly became tedious. Soon, they were reduced to a walking pace, weaving through the tree trunks. And then: a clearing, ringed with ancient stone. 

A strange, unidientifiable statue. Some sort of shrine?

Cassandra looks around, quietly curious, tracing the lines of the statue with a faraway finger. "Who is this figure? ...what is this place?" Adaar fishes out the map, peering at it for a moment. "I'm... I'm not really sure." 

Dorian takes a seat upon one of the large stones around the ring. "Well, wherever we are, I suggest we take a breather."

Sera motions back to the forest. "Gonna take a slash. You all better be here when I get back."

*

Sera starts walking back towards the clearing. The sun is low in the sky now, and the shadows in the forest grow dark and almost menacing. _If Solas were here, he'd probably say something stupid about the Fade_ , Sera thinks. 

Sera sees a familiar shadow deeper in the forest. It looks like Adaar, but motionless, her arms outstretched rigidly. 

_Maybe they found the way back?_

Sera walks towards the shadow with a slight bounce in her step. _Friggin' nature. Can't wait to get back._

Something isn't right. Sera catches up to Adaar, but she's still motionless, her eyes dull and lifeless.

"...Buckles?" Sera asks, softly, a note of terror creeping into her voice.

Adaar reaches out to Sera, hands hers _but not hers_ , clawing at her neck, dragging her —

The forest explodes and dissolves around her in bright, blinding light, and for a moment, Sera doesn't want to open her eyes; that deep down, there's some irrational part of her that thinks _none of this is real, if I keep my eyes shut this will all go away, this is shite, everything is shite, don't open your eyes_.

But it's irrational. It doesn't work. Sera opens her eyes. The Hinterlands is gone: there's a forest ...here, wherever _here_ is, and there's a thick, greenish fog here that's cloying and choking and insufferable. _Oh no, no, no..._

 _That_ demon _has dragged me to the Fade_.

Someone's coming.

Adaar — not-Adaar — strides slowly, noiselessly,through the forest. 

"Is this shape useful? Will it let me know you?"

"You're not her. You're just some demon or whatever." Sera tries to sound dismissive. Like this isn't a big deal. 

"Everything tells me about you."

Sera blows a raspberry. "The Herald of Andraste will kick your demony butt right back to the Fade."

"The Herald of Andraste!" it hisses.

"You're frigging not going to get anywhere near her!" Sera spits at not-Adaar. She knows it isn't her, but the likeness is close enough that it _stings_ deep in her chest.

"Frigging anywhere near her." Not-Adaar apes Sera's giggle. "I will become you first. Then I will become her."

Sera remembers Adaar talking about Therinfal, late one night. She remembers, because she couldn't sleep that night. She remembers, because she spent most of the night staring out on the balcony, trying not to think if there was a demon sleeping beside her at night. 

"You...she killed you! You're supposed to be dead!" 

"I emerge from the Fade again! I am Envy, and I will know you!"

Adaar — Envy — disappears. And off in the distance is a feature, indiscernible, outline glowing. The only point of light in this part of the Fade. Sera fumes. She doesn't want to play Envy's game. Shouldn't. But she's stuck. At the mercy of this demon. Stuck _bodily_ in the Fade. 

There's no choice in the matter. No way out. She tries to remember what Adaar told her about the first struggle with Envy. Keep it off balance. Don't think too much. Don't reveal too much.

Keep going up.

*

It's a door. There's no wall in this dank forest in the Fade. There's a light, shining behind the door, streaks streaming through the gaps between.

Sera stares at the door, fuming at it. She hates the Fade. She hates how it's slippery and intangible and _wrong_ ; that despite her strongest intentions it feels like this world is reading her mind, that there are invisible tendrils wrapping into her thoughts, dragging out the past, the pain, the scars of the struggle that she desperately tries not to think about. But there's no way out. Keep going up. And she takes the knob on the door and turns it —

Locked. Sera laughs a bitter laugh. _Frigging what._ She motions for her belt and finds her picks, and unlocks the door. She stares at the pick in her hand. The pick is real; it was on her as that — thing — dragged her through. But the lock isn't real. The door isn't real. She could have just willed the door open. And she remembers to keep her thoughts straightforward. Don't give it too much. And she flings the door open.

Inside is a brightly lit Orlesian ballroom. Like Halamshiral, but smaller. More intimate. But just as ornate, as golden, as _rich_. 

She hates it here already. An elven servant catches her eye.

"Oh! Lady Sera! We weren't told you'd be back in the Dales for weeks yet!"

"What? Pfft. I'm no _lady_."

"You're not Lady Sera?"

"Just call me Sera, all right? I'm no noble."

"Begging your pardon...but if you are Sera, you are nobility. Are you all right? Don't you remember?"

Sera's face drops. _More demony shite?_

"Tell me."

"Lady Adaar was granted noble title after the defeat of Corypheus. As a boon of the Empress? And title was extended to you too. Um, of course."

Sera looks at the ceiling. "What is this garbage, Envy?"

The elven servant looks at her nervously. Silence. 

"Um, miss?"

"Buckles wouldn't get servants. None of this makes sense. You're not real." Sera waves her hands at the elf.

"Why don't I take you to your bed?" She takes Sera's hand, leading her down a long corridor, with intricate portraits and gilt frames. And before Sera realizes, they're in a bedroom with a gigantic bed, gilt lions framing the headboard. A full-length mirror, showing Sera's reflection: somehow, she's wearing a long, red ballgown, encrusted with rubies. Just her color. _A trick of the Fade. Must be._

"This isn't real."

"My lady —" Sera glares at the servant "— m-miss. You're not well. Lie down."

"No. This isn't... " Sera pushes past the servant, and the elf trips and stumbles to the floor. 

A deep, booming chuckle. 

"Sooner push over the 'little people' when the going gets tough? Very helpful."

"Shut it! She isn't real! None of this is real! Y-you're twisting things all wrong!"

Envy chuckles some more.

"We're not friggin' nobles! We'd never even ask!"

"Thank you, Sera. That's most helpful."

"Ugh!" Sera pushes over a vase on a table in a pique of rage. _None of this is real. None of it._ She runs up a long staircase; statues of unrecognizable people flanking a corridor. _Keep going up._ And she bursts through a door —

*

It's a forest. But it's different from the one before, there's light and the air is sweeter. _Frigging nature._ Sera takes a deep breath. _Get a hold of yourself._

She looks through the trees. A campfire, a smattering of people sitting around, tending to camp. _Elves._ A Dalish camp. 

_Elfy elves._

"Da'len!" A man calls out to her. 

_Don't reveal too much._

Sera walks up to the camp.

"You've returned to us. After we gave you to the _shems_. What have you learned?" the Keeper asks.

"What." Sera asks, flatly.

"Did you not figure that out?"

Sera stares at the Keeper, wordlessly.

"Did no one tell you? Are you surprised?" He sighs, disappointed. "If the People are to survive, then we must understand. You are our eyes, our ears."

_Don't reveal too much._

"Talk to us." — he stands, almost a threat — "Despite your upbringing: you are one of us."

_No._

"I can hear you. Speak, _da'len_." 

"Piss up a rope." Sera says, quietly.

The Keeper smiles. "You are _elvhen_ ; don't forget that. Your responsibility is to us. We sent you among the _shemlen_ to serve your People, Sera. You would understand your true purpose, but we can see how much being with them for so long has dulled your mind. No matter. You are beholden to us and us alone. Tell us. Submit."

"Arsebiscuit."

The smile fades from his face. 

"Submit." he says again. But this time, it's not his voice. 

He waves a hand, staring at her with dead, steely eyes. The others stop and turn on their heels, slowly. Like the slow winching of Bianca's clockworks. Bows out, drawn. 

Ready to fire.

Sera reaches for her own weapon — _gone!_ — and as she thinks the thought, a smile creeps on the Keeper's face, hearing her every thought.

Doesn't matter. Sera spins around and leaps over the camp, as if she had a bow in hand, but getting herself away from the archers. _Leg it._

And she does, sprinting away from the camp and darting through the trees, arrows slamming dead into the tree trunks behind her, Sera's fleet footing landing one step ahead, faster; **faster** —

And suddenly Sera's sailing through the air, a lightning bolt of pain coursing, rippling through her ankle, and before the pain strikes and deafeningly rings throughout her body, Sera falls, and it's the _wrong kind_ of falling and she needs to fix it. _Head up. Legs first._ Too late.

*

And she strikes the ground, scraping the earth head first, earsplitting ringing, blinding... and as the dust settles, she sees the tree. 

_The frigging vhenadahl._

An elf girl runs to her. "Sera! Sera! It's your wedding day!" she shrieks. Something about her voice is wrong.

The girl takes her hand. "Come! Your groom is waiting! He's waiting!"

The girl slurs on the sibilants like a snake.

Sera wrenches her hand free, looking for a way out. But a crowd is gathering, moving toward her. Sera looks down, and somehow she's wearing a white wedding dress with a long train, tangling up her legs.

_Can't scarper with this shite on me._

The crowd are getting closer, shambling like corpses. No, not like corpses, but actual corpses, with bright hair and clothes but dull ashen skin. And pointed ears.

 _Welcome home_ , Sera thinks, and as she realizes the terror of the situation the entire alienage seems upon her, grabbing her desperately by the arms, dragging her forward towards the tree. 

Nowhere to run. 

As Sera is dragged forward she sees Envy's true, grotesque form, standing expectantly. _Arse, frig, arse, shite..._ she thinks, searching for a solution in her head.

No arrows.

_Frig, if this is the end, my last thoughts are going to be of her._

And Sera remembers that night after Therinfal, the long, yearning kisses spent in her room in the tavern, frightened of losing her, of being alone again, frightened, angry, enough, _enough_!

And Sera is angry at the Fade, the relentless incursions, the spirits, the demons, the neverending worry that all she holds dear evaporating.

Sera thinks of fire.

And the vhenadahl bursts into flame, and the walking corpses burst into flame, and the horrific shrieks of Envy fill the air. _Eat it, pissface._

Sera thinks of fire.

And the entire alienage is aflame, and the world begins to disintegrate into ash and dust, and Sera feels like she's waking from a terrible nightmare —

*

And Sera's back in the Hinterlands. The air is eerily still and quiet. Somewhere, a sparrow trills a little melody.

Sera falls to her knees and vomits.

Some time later, her stomach aching of cramps from the retching and mentally exhausted, Sera finds her way back at the clearing: Adaar peering at the map, Dorian dusting off his shoulders, Cassandra staring at the statue.

Sera tugs at Adaar's shoulder. She looks down at Sera and smiles; a real smile, it's really Buckles, it's over, it's over, it's over.

"Maybe we should camp — " Adaar starts

"No, please Buckles, let's just keep moving, please" Sera blurts out, on the verge of tears.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"Let's just go, okay?"

Cassandra takes a step to interject "Really, it would be prudent to stay here for tonight. I don't like the idea of walking through these woods at night."

"You're a frigging templar, you can handle demons, it's all right for you."

Adaar looks at Sera and the panic in her eyes, puts a hand to her cheek softly. And Sera relaxes a little, staring up at her love. "What happened?" Adaar asks, softly, quietly, reassuringly, seeming to suggest _I'm here, we'll take this on together, nothing can stop me, nothing can stop us_.

"Envy." Sera says, but her voice chokes in her throat, so it comes out a whisper.

Adaar nods knowingly. "Let's move." she says to the others.


End file.
